Goodbye Grandma Dort. You Were Awesome With People.
Me, My Grandma Dort and my Wife Sarah at our wedding in 2012
Late this morning, my Dad called to let me know that my amazing Grandma Dort passed away.
She was 89 years young and died peacefully in her sleep at her home in Great Falls, Montana.
I am glad it was peaceful. I’m not a particularly religious man, but this year, I lit candles for Dort in Notre Dame, Paris and St. Marys Cathedral in Sydney, Australia in hopes it would bring her to St. Peter safely.
Ok. I’m crying hard now. I’m not sure where to begin when describing my Grandmother, so I’ll just start writing and see where it goes.
Dort was the type of person that always seemed to know what was going on with everyone around her. I remember as a kid watching her spend hours and hours on the telephone gabbing with everyone she knew at her house at 123 Marilyn Drive.
It was always part catching up, part sharing gossip, part receiving gossip, part listening. And it was something she did constantly.
People were her thing.
Dort loved people and people loved Dort.
As Dort’s grandkids started going to college in the early 90s, e-mail started becoming a thing.
I remember my Dad buying a laptop in the mid 1990s and setting Dort up with an AOL account. It had a DOS version of AOL and a 2400 baud modem.
My Dad gave Dort very clear printed out instructions on how to send and receive email.
After that, my 70 year old Grandma starting emailing with everyone. My cousin Peggy Sue nicknamed her “Cyber-grandma.”
I remember setting up Grandma with a Facebook account. She never really got into Facebook. But she did get into MLB.tv so she could follow the Colorado Rockies daily from her computer.
I remember the pictures of Dort’s kids, grandkids and great grandkids on her wall.
It started when she married Aloysius (“Ally”) Lorang, a devilishly handsome Luxembourgian. Ally then served in the Navy during World War II.
Afterwards, Dort and Ally started having children as part of the Baby Boom.
Dort and Ally had 4 children — all boys — all born 18 months apart. Jim, Bob, Mike (my Dad) and Ken.
As a first time father currently struggling to figure things out with our first son Greyson, I find this incredible.
So I asked Dort a few months ago “Grandma, how did you do it? Four boys, 18 months apart? How did you survive?”
Her response to me:
“Well, Bart, I just remember sitting on the kitchen floor by myself crying a lot.”
No kidding. As I am learning this year, parenting is really hard.
But somehow, with the help of strict, knuckle-rapping-with-rulers Catholic Nuns, Dort managed to survive and raise these four rowdy boys that went on to have kids of their own.
Jim and his wife Sue had four kids — Peggy Sue, Sherry Lynn, Larry, and Mary Ann.
Bob and his wife Mary Jean had one child — Michelle.
Mike and his wife Dianne had two children — Me and Liz,
Ken and his wife Cindy had two children — Jenny and Kennetta.
Tragically, Bob and Mary Jean died in a car accident in 1977 when Michelle was 3 years old. My parents adopted Michelle as their own before I was born. I’ve always grown up with Michelle as my Big Sis and have never known anything different.
Two years later, tragedy struck again. In June of 1979, Ken died in a plane crash. A few days later, Ken’s daughter Kennetta was born.
Later, Keith Aune married Cindy and gave Dort two more grandchildren — Brett and Dirk.
How Dort kept it together after Bob and Ken’s deaths, I’m not really sure. Losing two sons in their twenties two years apart would be enough to send most people into a severe funk.
But the Dort everyone knew was always upbeat. Always positive. Always interested in what was happening in everyone’s life. Always great with other people.
Dort would always send handwritten cards and notes for birthdays, anniversaries and Christmas.
I remember that everywhere we went in Great Falls, everyone seemed to know her and she knew everyone. Dort knew about what they were doing, what their kids were up to and always greeted everyone with a smile.
I remember talking with my Mom about the subject of guest hospitality once.
My Mom told me: “You should treat your family like company and your company like family. Your Grandma Dort has this mastered.”
I remember as a kid, she had a special closet for the kids. Full of toys and knick-knacks that we’d raid when we came and visited.
I remember her making me ham and cheese sandwiches and constantly tending to everyone’s needs.
Grandma Dort and Greyson Lorang in September 2014
Sarah and I visited Dort in Great Falls in late September so she could meet her grandson Greyson in person.
We stayed at her house and shared stories.
We took a driving tour of Great Falls and she showed us where she raised her four kids — in a 900 square foot house a few blocks away from the school.
We went out to the country and visited my cousins.
We went and ate at the Gold Dust casino for Sunday brunch.
Dort told us about my Dad and Ken hitchhiking to Europe, then ski-bumming around the Alps, homeless and penniless.
She also told us about Mike and Ken’s surprise return home to Great Falls.
Dort also showed me her secret weapon — her little black contact book.
It was full of handwritten names, phone numbers and rich details about people — a paper version of what we’re trying to build at FullContact!
Dorothy Lorang truly was Awesome with People.
I will never forget her or the impact she had on my life.
My best friend, Eric, once told me: “Heaven or Hell is how people remember you.”
Well, with that in mind, I am certain that Dort is in Heaven.
We All Love You Grandma Dort. Rest In Peace.